Weekly Message: March 12th, 2024

Thank You for a Great WEMTA Turnout!

WEMTA’s annual conference was held last week, and we want to send out a big THANK YOU to everyone who came by the WiLS/WSDLC booth in the exhibit hall, those who attended OverDrive’s Marketplace sessions, and those of you that stopped and talked to us in hallways and snack lines! Getting to meet WSDLC members face-to-face is a joy on its own, but being able to chat and hear the amazing stories of how the WSDLC collections have been working for your students and those areas where you’re experiencing roadblocks has put us over the moon and sparked ideas that we’re excited to explore and grow.

We also want to send many thank yous to Connie Bowman and Beth Saxton at OverDrive for their support, knowledge, and hearts! Connie and Beth led two magnificent sessions that focused on utilizing OverDrive Marketplace, effortlessly pivoting between explaining and exploring Marketplace usage for seasoned- and new- Marketplace users. We are so grateful for the entire WSDLC OverDrive team’s hard work and easy demeanor- they are a knowledgeable group of people who are not just committed to supporting Wisconsin’s schools, but also passionate about the work that they do. Thank You!

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New Titles Added in February

Last month, 308 completely new titles were added in to the WSDLC shared collections!
Of these titles:

  • 253 are Ebooks; 50 are Audiobooks; and 5 are Magazines
  • 71 are Spanish language books, with 11 of them Audiobooks and the other 60 being Ebooks.
  • 207 are Metered Access titles; 91 are One Copy/One User titles; 9 are Simultaneous Use titles; and 1 is even a Metered Access Concurrent Use title

Many of these titles have already seen some generous use, with ten titles already seeing over 50 holds in just the few short weeks they’ve been available!

  • This Means War! (Big Nate series) – 230 holds
  • The Rise of Scourge (Warriors manga series) – 143 holds
  • Rise of the Cat (HiLo series) – 84 holds
  • Evil Spy School (Spy School: The Graphic Novels series) – 80 holds
  • Hermanas (Smile series) – 71 holds
  • Making Friends, Volume 4: Together Forever (Making Friends series) – 69 holds
  • King Cheer – 59 holds
  • All Is Nat Lost (Nat Enough series) – 55 holds
  • Weird But True! Know-It-All: U.S. Government – 54 holds
  • Heroes: A Novel of Pearl Harbor (unabridged) – 54 holds

A complete list of all the new titles added in February, along with their format and content access level(s), can be viewed as a Google Sheet here.

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In Case You Missed It: WSDLC Board Nominations are Open

Nominations opened up yesterday for 3 seats on the WSDLC board, one each from the following CESA regions: CESA 2, CESA 3, and CESA 5.

The Board Operational Guidelines for the consortium call for the WSDLC Board to include one representative from each CESA area. To be eligible for a seat on the WSDLC Board, nominees must be from a WSDLC member district within an open CESA region and they must be their district’s Member Representative*. Terms are for three years, and will begin on September 1st, 2024.
*If you aren’t sure if you’re a Member Representative, if you would you like to change your district’s Member Representative, or if you’d like more information, please reach out to the Project Managers at wsdlc-info@wils.org.

Board members are asked to meet certain expectations:

  • To participate in all meetings* and to come prepared to meetings in order to effectively participate in discussions and decision-making.
    • *The Board has regular meetings 4 times per year, typically in October, January, March, and April. There are two additional meetings during the year: a Board Orientation in the Fall and an
  • Annual Meeting in the Spring.
  • To work well in a collaborative group setting.
  • To complete tasks on behalf of the Board between meetings.
  • To monitor and track the budget to ensure fidelity between the work conducted and the available funds.
  • To monitor and track the contract with the project manager.
  • To responsibly represent the project to partners.
  • To advocate for the project, as the position allows.
  • To review and approve the WSDLC contract annually with the project manager.
  • To share local items of interest and to bring member input or suggestions to the Board that pertain to the project.

To nominate yourself or a colleague (with their permission) for the WSDLC Board, please reach out to wsdlc-info@wils.org to get the link to the nominations form.
The nominations period will run through the end of the day on March 29th. Voting will open on April 8th and run through April 26th.

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Flipped Classrooms: Purchasing is on Now!

It’s March, and this month we’ll be talking about Purchasing! In this Flipped Classroom, you’ll get an inside look at how titles are selected and purchased for the Consortium. You’ll also find more details on how to purchase titles for your Advantage account: learn how to build and manage carts, add content credit, adjust the content access level for your purchases, and read some tips and tricks on how to avoid accidentally purchasing titles more than once (when you don’t necessarily mean to).

What are the WSDLC’s Flipped Classrooms?
The WSDLC offers a self-paced training series to help new members get oriented (and as a refresher for returning members) with their membership and the Sora collections. Every month, a different topic and set of materials are highlighted to help guide members throughout the school year. The content of these Flipped Classrooms is intended for library media specialists and anyone else who may help manage school/district library resources, OverDrive Advantage purchasing, and digital classroom materials. Materials are available for members to review independently, and OverDrive staff are ready to schedule one-on-one 20-minute sessions to answer members’ questions.
You can find more information on WSDLC Training opportunities and materials here: https://wsdlc.org/training/
Find the full calendar of self-paced training topics here: https://wsdlc.org/training/wsdlc-training-schedule/

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Later This Month: 2024-25 WSDLC Membership Renewal Quotes

We don’t have any updates on the renewal quote timeline this week, so we’re going to go ahead and keep copy/pasting previous messaging that explains the WSDCL’s Renewal Quote process for the benefit of anyone who is new to this email group~

WSDLC Project Managers aren’t able to provide exact cost quotes for 2024-25 quite yet, as we use the previous year’s certified enrollment numbers as reported to DPI to calculate those costs. DPI hasn’t made that information available via WISEdash quite yet, but this data typically becomes available in mid-March, and we are checking for it daily. Once the 2023-24 school year data is available, we will be able to begin calculating the cost for each member district, and will email quotes to each school/district’s Main Contact within one week. (Not sure who your Main Contact is? You can reach out to us at wsdlc-info@wils.org to find out!)

To help you in your planning, as long as your school/district hasn’t seen a large change in enrollment between 2022-23 and 2023-24, your estimated 2024-25 WSDLC Membership cost will be roughly the same as it was for 2023-24.

Details on Pricing Quote Calculation
WSDLC renewal pricing is based on DPI’s certified enrollment numbers for the previous academic year. To calculate costs for the 2024-25 WSDLC membership year, we will be using the FTE data for 2023-24. We will take the FTE for your enrolled grades, and multiply this by $1.65 to get your 2024-25 membership year cost.

As a reminder, in March 2023, the WSDLC Board approved keeping the cost per student steady for 2024-25, with a 2% increase for the following two membership years. The price will be $1.65 per student for the 2024-25 membership year; increasing to $1.72 per student for 2025-26; and $1.74 per student for 2026-27.

*For WiLS MyWiLS Members Please Note: WSDLC pricing is not loaded into your MyWiLS account but will be emailed to you.

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The WSDLC project managers and the team at OverDrive are always available if you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions.
Not sure who to contact? Check out this handy guide on the WSDLC website: https://wsdlc.org/who-to-contact-with-questions/.

WiLS Team